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Four candidates in fight for 4th District Congressional seat

(Undated) -- Incumbent Congressman Todd Platts is not seeking re-election after 12 years in Washington. His decision to retire has opened up a race among four candidates for the seat in the newly re-drawn Fourth Congressional District.

The district includes all of York and Adams counties -- the eastern end of Cumberland County and the city of Harrisburg.

Democrat Harry Perkinson says he's focusing his candidacy on opposing what he calls failed Republican leadership. The engineer and former business owner sees investment in transportation, technology and other infrastructure as a key to economic recovery.

"We will not be able to cut our way out of this debt, and we're not going to be able to tax our way out of this debt," Perkinson says. "The only way we get out of this, just like we did at the end of the Second World War, is to grow our way out."

Republican Scott Perry takes a different view. The Army National Guard Colonel, who served in Iraq, has been a state representative for five years. He says job creation and economic recovery will come once the country's fiscal house is in order.

"We are living on borrowed money and borrowed time," Perry says. "I'm concerned about the future that my children and our greater community have with that kind of mindset. That's my number one priority."

Cutting the nation's debt and reducing the deficit are also parts of Independent candidate Wayne Wolff's platform. He says he thinks there's enough disappointment with both parties to give him considerable support.

Wolff has worked for a Maryland public utility and says that informs his economic policies. "I see where there's ineffeciency that can be corrected in order to put us back on track," Wolff says. "The biggest thing is to reduce government regulation, or overregulation, and get people back to work."

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